“Do as much as you can with a project BEFORE you start investing a lot of money into it. Test your prototype, polish it, get it to as perfect as possible before spending. From there you can start investing in the art, editing, etc., but get it as close to final as you can first – it can save you a lot of future headaches.”
When to abandon one of your board game designs, when not to, and when to just put it on pause for a bit:
https://www.thedarkimp.com/blog/2023/10/11/when-to-abandon-a-game-youve-designed/
Why you shouldn’t worry too much if your next board game design doesn’t come together faster and easier than your previous one:
https://shippboardgames.blogspot.com/2023/10/next-game-blues.html
Advice for sticking with a board game design when the going gets tough—a Bluesky board game design discussion:
https://bsky.app/profile/gregisonthego.bsky.social/post/3kb4jlzignk2x
Lots of playtesting advice for new board game designers—a Bluesky game designer discussion:
https://bsky.app/profile/gregisonthego.bsky.social/post/3ka5qzrfpmh2i
Having a hit game can pose some surprising challenges for a publisher—here are some ways of handling a runaway success:
https://stonemaiergames.com/the-next-big-thing-how-to-handle-a-products-runaway-success/
Money in board games: modeling inflation, different components for money, loans in games, money that isn’t money, games without money, money as the theme, and more (scroll for English):
https://faidutti.com/blog/blog/2023/09/25/les-jeux-et-largent-money-and-games/
Balance: a deep, two-part discussion about what game balance is, why we care about it, how games can be balanced, and the downsides of overbalancing a design (audio):
https://decisionspace.podbean.com/e/balance-pt-1-what-we-talk-about/
https://decisionspace.podbean.com/e/balance-pt-2-what-we-talk-about/
Some reasons why players may find your game’s theme “boring”:
https://shippboardgames.blogspot.com/2023/09/boring-themes.html
“Keep in mind that every game you create (or try to create) is a learning experience. Know that discarded games are not useless. You will always learn from a failed game. These are the ones that teach you the most. A shelved game is like negative feedback well given, you learn much more than with positive feedback.”
